Assange described his feelings about the US election results in an interview as “mixed” before going on to sharply criticize Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and providing a more ambivalent assessment of Trump’s ascent to the White House. “Hillary Clinton’s election would have been a consolidation of power in the existing ruling class of the United States,” Assange told the Italian newspaper la Repubblica. “Donald Trump is not a DC insider, he is part of the wealthy ruling elite of the United States, and he is gathering around him a spectrum of other rich people and several idiosyncratic personalities.”